Vote Mathis for mayor

Tuesday

Oct 15, 2013 at 12:01 AM

Editor: This fiscal year the Thomasville City Council will: write checks totaling $116,000 to six "outside agencies"; approve $777,925 in installment financing to buy vehicles and equipment; and seek, in addition to a plethora of smaller grants, $1 million from the national Community Development Block Grant program to subsidize the renovation projects of two private companies.

Editor: This fiscal year the Thomasville City Council will: write checks totaling $116,000 to six "outside agencies"; approve $777,925 in installment financing to buy vehicles and equipment; and seek, in addition to a plethora of smaller grants, $1 million from the national Community Development Block Grant program to subsidize the renovation projects of two private companies.The city council, the one that is doing all this gifting, borrowing and grant chasing, was elected in 2011. Thomasville's first seven-member city council was elected in 1987.In 1987, there may have been grants, but they were few and far between. Installment financing was unheard of; it was universally accepted that there could be no borrowing without a referendum. Conversely, there was then, as there is today, a propensity to give taxpayer money to politically favored groups. But the council elected in 1987 put a stop to such shenanigans.Joe G. Bennett was a councilman before he became mayor. He was elected to his first term as councilman in 1999. Just a dozen years separate 1999 from 1987, but the gap that matters is not chronological.A mayor can vote only to break a tie, but he can do something more important than voting: he can be the conscience of the council. But a mayor can be a better conscience if his experience is not limited to a municipal government fiscal environment where anything goes.It would behoove the taxpayers to have a mayor who can remember what it was like when grants were scarce, borrowing was hard to do and handouts to agencies were nonexistent.One of Mayor Bennett's opponents for mayor, J.W. Mathis, served on the city council elected in 1987.I will be voting for J.W. Mathis for mayor of Thomasville.Barney W. HillThomasville